Wheelbarrows have long been used to move heavy or bulky items by human propulsion. Conventional wheelbarrows have a wheel rotatably mounted to a rigid frame. The frame typically includes a pair of parallel handles for grasping by the user. A tray or bucket is secured to the frame for holding materials to be moved by the wheelbarrow. Once materials are loaded onto the tray, the user grasps and lifts the handles to balance the wheelbarrow on the wheel. The user then pushes the handles to roll the wheel over the ground and move the wheelbarrow to a desired location.
One limitation of conventional wheelbarrows is their large size. For residential use, the size of conventional wheelbarrows makes them difficult to transport to the residence from the store and also to store in a garage or shed once located at the residence. For commercial use, the size of conventional wheelbarrows can add to time and transportation costs of transporting equipment to and from job sites. Additionally, shipping and storage of large wheelbarrows can be very costly for manufacturers and retailers.
To overcome these problems, many foldable or collapsible wheelbarrows have been constructed. These collapsible wheelbarrows can be classified into two main classes, those with flexible fabric trays and those with rigid metal or plastic trays. The prior collapsible wheelbarrows with fabric trays are typically designed for “light duty” applications such as carrying leaves, grass clippings, or other lightweight items. The fabric trays typically hold a relatively small volume of material and the light-weight construction severely limits the amount of weight that can be moved at any one time. These wheelbarrows would be quickly destroyed in used in “heavy duty” applications such as heavy gardening or construction. The prior collapsible wheelbarrows with rigid trays are typically designed for heavy duty applications but are overly complex to produce and use. Additionally, in many cases the size of the collapsible wheelbarrow is not substantially reduced when collapsed. Furthermore, in many cases the ability to reduce the size of the collapsible wheelbarrow is at the expense of load carrying capacity or other desired feature of wheelbarrows such as, for example a “kicker” of adequate strength. The kicker is useful for quickly dumping a load of material from the tray by tilting the wheelbarrow forward until the kicker engages the ground and carries the weight of the wheelbarrow and load of materials and then rocking the wheelbarrow on the kicker to dump the material forwardly out of the tray. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved collapsible wheelbarrow which can be utilized in heavy duty applications.